Trump was the gift who kept on giving for the media

The fourth estate will miss the human headline that was Donald Trump. Picture: Nicholas Kamm/AFP

The fourth estate will miss Donald­ Trump. The Trumpster was always good for a headline, even when it was just an accidental blooper, and there were plenty of those. Editors knew he could be relied upon for good copy.

Joe Biden will be far more cautious than his predecessor. He won’t make decisions on the run and he won’t shoot from the hip. Almost five decades in public life have made him far more careful than his colourful predecessor. He was forced to wait for an in­ordinately long time to claim the prize he had always dreamed could one day be his.

Trump had acted like a med­ieval king and put relatives into key positions. He cared little about time-honoured precedents. He was certainly a fan of nepotism, so much so that he showed a tendency to act like the legendary Democrat mayor of Chicago Richard Daley. When Daley was being hammered about giving the city insurance contract to a company­ associated with his son-in-law, he replied: “What kind of father would I be if I couldn’t help my daughter’s husband?” As the old saying goes: if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

Biden is much more in tune with the modern traditions of American democracy than Trump because he is well-read, an accusation that could never be levelled at Trump. You will not see Biden install a raft of relatives into important government positions. He will be prudent in his decision­ making. Shoot-from-the-hip” forms of governance will be abandoned. America will revert­ to the kind of country that will take appropriate time to analyse­ situations before wading in with a big stick. Being the most powerful nation in the world carries with it the need for considered responses. This was a concept beyond­ Trump’s grasp. To crack an egg, Trump always brought a hammer to the table. Subtlety was, quite simply, beyond him.

US President Donald Trump delivers an update on "Operation Warp Speed" in the Rose Garden on November 23 — the day the government agency meant to ease Joe Biden's transition into the White House said it was finally lifting its unprecedented block on assistance. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Across the Atlantic, a different tale is being told. Boris Johnson has been able to modify his hardline Brexit views in the face of a firm reality that no other country would accept his original aggressive approach. There is no point in being a hairy-chested warrior looking for a fight in a time of peace when no one else is prepared to take up their cudgels.

Johnson may well win a second­ term on the basis that he has become a likeable human being, an accusation hitherto not cast in his direction. Now the broad grin showing all those very white teeth is the look he cultivates. Thus far, it has proved to be a successful transformation.

In France, Emmanuel Macron got himself elected as the non-politician who would bow down to neither the socialists nor the Gaullists. Now the streets of Paris are frequently occupied by disgruntled farmers. On this issue, Macron is on the side of the angels because he knows just how in­efficient French agriculture really is, but the angels do not have the numbers. Farmers across the world can be too easily addicted to government largesse and France is no exception.

The Germans remain above the sordid world of French and Italian agriculture subsidies. The subsidies are so large and so ingrained­ that the need for effic­iency was long ago discarded. Tiny plots of land ensure this in­efficiency will remain in the short to medium term. No move for reform­ appears to be evident in French politics or agriculture. The mistakes of the past are repeated every day and, for the farmers, no respite is in sight.

It came as quite a shock to all Her Majesty’s loyal Australia ­citizens when Britain decided to unceremoniously dump the Commonwealth and leave us to our own devices. Britain turned to Europe and simultaneously turned its back on the nations that had sheltered under its wing for as long as anyone can remember.

This should not have come as a shock for all those who recall the way Britain behaved when Mal­ay­sia and Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1941. Pledges to defend­ countries such as ours were ditched in a flash as Britain scrambled to get its defence act together. This was when Australia began to understand that it could no longer rely on the mother country in times of strife. ANZUS was born of necessity.

In the annals of poor decisions in times of war, the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor will go down as an absolute stinker. You learn as a kid in school that a kid in kindergarten has no hope against a sixth-grader. You might get in a few good shots if the giant is asleep but the end result will never be in doubt.

Japanese ambition carried all before it for a time but that could never have lasted. The Japanese ran out of gas — literally. They jealously looked at the oilfields of other countries and opted to wage war to get the oil. It would have been much easier to negotiate a fair price and pay for it. The citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would certainly agree.

The speed of the rebuilding of Japan after the war was incredible, as was the speed in rebuilding the relationship with Australia and its allies. The Japanese were never ones to let the grass grow under their feet. They were beaten but not humbled. They just got on with business and nobody could do business as well as they.